OZV lodi zinfandel 2007

After a long day at work coming home to a baby who's starting to learn separation anxiety. We cooked up a supper that turned out so-so, but opened this bottle of wine. OZV, old zin vin, from the Oak Ridge Winery in Lodi California.

This wine was good right from uncorking. The first sip had sweet drips on the tip of the tongue in the beginning. And then the wine turned rich and jammy and smooth. Delicious. And got better as it breathed in our glasses. Both C and I polished the bottle off after baby went to bed.

The rating was unanimous between the two of us.... Lip Licking Good wine. It's a bottle we'd definitely buy again. I'm not sure how much it cost since it was a Christmas gift. But no matter the cost I'd get it again for both a gift and for us. I'd be curious if a second bottle is as enjoyable as this one. In fact after looking at the Oak Ridge winery website I'd look for and try any of the wines they make.

cigarzin search

I've found another wine to add to the "to drink" list. Cigarzin Zinfandel from Lodi California. I was at dinner last night with some friends and they ordered a glass. I'd heard good things and tried a tiny sip. It was yummy. Smooth, and fruity, and smooth. After some googling I'm pretty sure it comes from the Cosentino Winery. The 2007 vintage is supposed to be lovely which is what I sipped. Now to find a bottle is a nother mission/adventure.

Fire + Wine

One of my favorite Lodi wineries, Harney Winery, opened the winery tonight for "Ladies Night". They offered lots of fun stuff like tasting, drinks, food samples, and shopping for holiday gits. Instead of dealing with the crowds, we just grabbed a glass of wine and sat by the fire pit and toasted to life. Mine was the Old Vine Zinfandel ($9.00), hers was the Petite Sirah ($7.00).

Sometimes it's nice to just kick back and drink some wine. I hope you all do the same this week!

I had many, many First Sips

I love going to Lodi, CA for wine tasting. Now everyone talks about Napa and Sonoma when they mention California wine areas, but Lodi has a special place in my heart because 1) It's super close. Seriously 10 minutes and I'm there; 2) It's far less pricey than the Napa and Sonoma areas (usually); 3) It's the first place I ever tried Old Vine Zin.

So, when my friends mentioned that they have a weekend called First Sip, I knew that it was going to be great. The wineries had only started storing the wine in the last few days, so it was a great chance to go an experience newly barreled wine. There were 40 wineries offering food, tastings and drinks, so what a great way to spend the weekend. Here's a run down of the places that I went and my thoughts (if I can remember them......we went to a lot of wineries):

Berghold Estate Winery - Recently my parents mentioned they were interested in getting an old school bar put into their house and I was super impressed with the huge one on display at Berghold. The place has a lot of cool antiques. The cabs were our favorites there.

d'Art Wines - Our first stop of the day and also our first barrel tasting. It's fun to taste the barrels, cause it's still so much like juice. This place also had some delicious lemon olive oil. One of my friends bottled his own bottle, however, it was just basically filling up a bottle and using the machines to put the cork and label on.

Harney Lane Winery - One of my favorite. The wine is seriously so delicious, I can hardly stand it. It's one of the newer wineries and I have a bottle of their zin waiting in my wine rack.

Jessie's Grove - I know they probably hear this all the time, but when I went there, I couldn't stop seeing Jessie's Grove to the tune of Jessie's Girl. I don't remember a lot about this one, it was near the end of the first day. But they make the Earth, Zin and Fire wine that I've had before.

Macchia - My friend is a wine club member here. They have a ton of yummy zins with cool names like Mischievous, Ambitious, Voluptuous, Victorious, etc. They also have a wine that raises money for breast cancer research called Boobylicious. They have a delicious sweet muscat called Sensuous, that I have waiting for a day when it isn't so could outside! Can we also talk about how they had a taco truck on premise and had delicious $3.00 burritos. Seriously, I kind of dream about those burritos to this day.

Michael David - Amy has already shared her love of the Petite Petit and I'm a wine club member here. A favorite of mine.

Periano - Amy recently talked about The Other wine. These are my everyday wines. They have a bunch of decent relatively cheap wines. We bought a case to split and the grand total was $6 a bottle. Awesome.

Dancing Coyote Wines - They had a moscato barrel tasting which was so super sweet and yummy. They also have some very cool labels. This was a second day stop so I didn't buy anything that day, but I'm definitely going to have to next time.

Vino Piazza - Again this was another stop, but holy cow they have a ton of wineries all nestled together. They had a really cleverly named wine that I cannot for the life of me remember that I totally wanted to buy. However, my 9 bottle purchase the day before made me a little gun shy. However, that just means I'll have to go back.

I so should have kept better notes, cause I know we made it to like 4 other wineries that I don't remember! Which just goes to show you how awesome it was right? Now I've just got to get prepped for the next Lodi Wine Event. Will it be Wine and Chocolate or Zinfest? Stay tuned.

My Weekend

When I first traveled to California to see if I wanted to move here, I made my way to the Lodi area and tried my first Old Vine Zinfandel. Ever since then, I have been hooked. And while I didn't move to California just because of the wines, it sure didn't hurt. 

So you can imagine how excited I am to be spending the next two days hitting up the Lodi Wine region for The First Sip. There are 40 different wineries that are giving tastings, food, music and other awesome activities (barrel tasting, grape stomp, music). I'm really excited to get some of the first sips of the 2010 vintages. 

Now, the key is to keep the number of bottles I purchase under control. Fingers crossed. I hope to keep good notes and to offer a great writeup after the event. However, I've got me a designated driver.......so fingers crossed.

Petite Petit

phew I'm so completely falling behind in my reviews. I guess it's a good thing that I haven't been drinking too much wine lately! Other wise it would be a lost cause. I purchased the Earthquake Zin at Michael and David vineyard and Miranda purchased the Petite Petit.

At the time (wines here are so good so I can see my faves changing w/ my mood) these were the two fave wines we tasted. (At that point in time I was more in a zin mood, if I were to choose right this second I would pick the petite.) This was a smooth, bold, lovely petite petit. We drank ours w/ take out chinese while catching up from not seeing each other in months. The bottle disappeared quickly, but every drop was thoroughly enjoyed. I would definitely get this again. Not only is the label fun but it has an awesome cork.

Earthquake Zinfandel

I am back from California although I still might be on California time. Ugh and the fact that it's Thursday is still confusing me. But I am back and have a couple of wines to share.

After being picked up at the airport, Miranda and I headed straight for Lodi to visit the vineyards on our list. First stop was Michael and David vineyards. I've reviewed several wines by them before, and Miranda is also a member of their wine club. We tasted a variety of their wines, a couple white, a rose that was interesting, and then several of the reds. Earthquake Zinfandel was my fave of the day and I quickly purchased a bottle.

This delicious zin is smooth and bold and full of flavor. I've said before Lodi zins are the best, and this lives up to that. The label and cork are both fitting for the name. And to quote the vineyard's description of the wine, "it will rock your world." Although heed my warning, with over 15% alcohol sip this one slowly.

off to California

Tomorrow I'm off to the land of wine, redwoods, beautiful coast line, and Miranda...California. By mid afternoon tomorrow we'll be visiting wineries in Lodi sampling lots of wines. Then we'll drive up the California coast line into Northern California to see the redwoods. It's supposed to be a gorgeous drive and I'm very much looking forward to it. I'm sure we'll find plenty of wines to sample and drink along the way!

cheers!

Hidden Jewel Old Vine Zin

This bottle here is the reason for my 4 month binge of Zinfandel's. =0) We bought this when we visited Miranda out in California. The first night we went out to Lodi to find a winery that was open past 4 and found Hidden Jewel. Lodi California is known for their zinfandel's and for good reason....they're fabulous. After this vacation every time I went to the wine store I'd look for Lodi zins...they are always wonderful. This was the first bottle I had that was old vine zin. The flavors are slightly more rich but still smooth. It's a pity Hidden Jewel doesn't distribute around here.

Windmill Estates Old Vine Zinfandel

I have a back log of wines I wanted to document and this is the first of them. Since visiting Miranda in California and tasting some zinfandels from Lodi CA I became hooked. For about 4 months that was all I would drink. I'm branching out again now...but I still LOVE an old vine zin from Lodi. Lodi is not far from M and so she brought back some yummy zins for Christmas presents this year. I got a 2006 Windmill Estates Old Vine Zinfandel pictured here. This is from the Michael and David vineyards in Lodi. They also sell the well known Seven Deadly Zins..which is also very good but that's another post. I would actually really like to try the rest of their selection of wines...just for the shear genius of their names! =)
Windmill Estates is a nice zinfandel, although not my absolute favorite. It didn't seem to be quite as rich as other "old vine" zins that I've had from the area. It's actually only 76% Zinfandel and 24% petit Sirah, which is a nice combination but explains why it wasn't quite up to the other old vines I've had. I definitely enjoyed the wine and would have no issues having another bottle. It would be perfect if you were going to share it with a wine drinker that is just starting to enjoy a nice zin.